


Unresolved

by SpaceWall



Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse & Related Fandoms, Inspector Morse (TV), Lewis (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Awkward Dates, Awkward Flirting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endeavour Season 3, Falling In Love, Found Family, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old Together, Internalized Homophobia, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Mentors, Romance, Secret Relationship, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2019-11-13 23:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18041030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall
Summary: Entwined stories spanning more than fifty years, of love, friendship, and growth. Featuring Morse’s deep angst, Peter’s fucked up backstory, Lewis’s hidden depths, with cameos from Hathaway’s all-of-the-above.I prefer to update the tags as the story progresses, so if a character or relationship isn’t tagged yet, it won’t appear in the currently posted chapters, but that doesn’t mean it won’t appear at all. Any triggers will be at the notes at the beginning of any given chapter.





	1. Morse

**Author's Note:**

> TW/CW implied/referenced past rape/non-con&child abuse- Jakes’s canonical past is Very Bad and this story does not ignore that fact. If you think that might be a trigger for you, I’d avoid it. Look after you. 
> 
> Also, I *really* couldn’t get into these character’s voices, so, like, that’s what it is. I barely have a handle on 2019 Canadian slang, let alone 1960s British slang. So, you know. Shhh.

Morse’s soulmate didn’t want him. It was a fact of life, another broken thing about him. Most people had blurred marks when they were children; most people were of similar ages to their soulmates, and most children didn’t want to be tied down to someone they’d never met. Marks always cleared up when your soulmate was ready, when they wanted you. They cleared if your soulmate died, too, so you’d have some idea who you’d missed. Morse’s hadn’t. It had been unbearable at college, being the only student with an unresolved mark. Pagan, who didn’t have the love given to him by God. Everyone had a soulmate, or wanted to meet theirs, or scoured obituaries to compare their mark to the dead.

It was easier in the police. Regulation said marks had to be covered, which meant no one questioned Morse’s refusal to roll up his sleeves, any more than they questioned Thursday’s gloves- under the left, his mark was a simple rose, a vague mark that could have belonged to anyone, but, apparently, was clarified by a mark Morse had never seen on ‘Win’. It didn’t take away the sting, though, when he saw marks on witnesses and victims and criminals. Sometimes, he could see matches between them. Most marks were more obvious than Thursday’s, and none, save those on the very young, were as oblivious as Morse. But he went on. He worked; he tried not to think about the patch of swirling absence just below his elbow.

And then Blenheim Vale happened, and Morse went to jail. Like police, criminals weren’t allowed to show their marks. Not even if they wanted to. Morse wore the patch, and tried not to care, and waited. The mark didn’t matter, not compared to Thursday. 

When Morse got out, he didn’t uncover the mark. It was one of the good, waterproof patches, the kind that could last up to a month if you didn’t shower too much or pick at it. He took up his quiet cabin in the woods, and tried to forget. It was easier to not look at the mark and remember every day how unwanted he was.

Among the rich and famous, marks mattered less. There was a certain pride in flaunting marks that clearly didn’t match your partner, a set of books on a girl’s arm while she clung to an airhead ninny or a musclebound moron. It was a leftover from the days of arranged marriages. The royal family still didn’t marry their matches, as a rule, and plenty of wealthy people chose the same. 

And then the outside world came back for him, as it always had. It was a case of unclear marks, as these things often were. Identical twins never had identical marks, but it had been just their luck to each have a mark that could have applied to the same woman. To switch places, all it had taken was a- highly illegal- tattoo removal and replacement. Morse couldn’t help but pity them. He knew what it was like, to feel unwanted, unseen by everyone, even- especially- your soulmate. 

That was why it was a shock, that night, to finally peel off the cover, which had been hanging on by a thread for some time, and find a thin black outline in the shape of a suit and tie staring up at him.

A man. It wasn’t a surprise. Morse loved women, was attracted to women, but he had always known, deep down, that the broken person who completed him was a man. A man who wore suits, apparently, and thin ties. 

Even if it wasn’t criminal any more- as of this year, actually- acting on homosexual marks was still frowned upon. Morse could be thrown out of the police- properly, this time. Whoever this was could lose his job too. Morse traced the lines with reverent fingers. 

“I could love you,” he told it, softly. Then, because he could love him, he rummaged around until he found some glue, and glued the patch back onto his arm. 

Plenty of people with marks in unusual places bought industrial strength patches. They were one of the great innovations of the modern age. Morse went down to the local drug store, and bought thirty. Waterproof, stretchy, flesh coloured. Hopefully, they’d last. Then he went and presented himself in Bright’s office. 

“Morse?” 

Just because police officers weren’t supposed to show their marks on duty, in case they matched with a suspect, didn’t mean that their employers weren’t supposed to know. Somewhere in his desk, Bright had a file with descriptions of every mark that belonged to a man under his command. He knew that Morse’s was still scrambled. 

Morse took off his coat, rolled up his sleeve, and pulled the glued patch and a bit of hair up after. He showed his bared arm to Bright, who raised his eyebrows. 

“You’ve resolved, then?”

“Sir.” Morse had already considered this necessity, and advised him, “I think it might mean that she works in a tailor’s? Or a department store? Maybe the first thing she’ll say to me is that she likes my suit.”

“You think that’s your suit, Morse?” Bright had that terrible twinkle in his eye. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Remember to look carefully, Morse. Soulmates can be found in the most unlikely places. When I met my match in India-”

“Thank you, sir. Do you want me to write up the description for you?” 

Bright shook his head. “I think I remember well enough. Outline, black, men’s suit jacket with tie. Unmatched.” He should have been writing it down, but he didn’t. His hands remained folded carefully on the desk.

“Yes, sir. May I go?” Morse needed to get out of there before Bright thought about it too hard. He pressed the patch back down, keenly aware that it wouldn’t stick, pulled his sleeve over it, and his jacket back on. He could replace it when he got home.

“Certainly, but please, remember that whoever she is, she must have been in a very difficult place, to have been unready for a soulmate for so long. Be gentle.” He said ‘she’ in a way that sent shivers down Morse’s spine.

He schooled his face into careful blankness. “I will. Thank you, sir.” 

Having technically been given permission to leave, Morse fled.

He didn’t tell anyone else. Why would he? Monica wasn’t sleeping with him anymore, so she wouldn’t see the change. DeBryn and Thursday had always treated him like a person regardless of his mark, and, with Strange’s betrayal, there was nobody else left on the force who he really trusted. Well, there was Jakes, but Jakes had ribbed him about having an unresolved mark. ‘Are you matched with a child, Morse?’ He would jab, like everyone had always jabbed. 

After learning the truth, those remarks had hurt more. He had wondered, ‘does Jakes think that of me? Does he think I would ever hurt a child like that?’ 

But no, Jakes hadn’t meant it like that; he was almost certain. It was the same callous joke they’d told in college, if delivered with a bit more hurt behind it. 

Morse went back to work, and moved back to the city. He watched businessmen and accountants, looking for an uncovered mark that might have indicated him, but never found it. It was just his luck to have the vague mark of the pair. Morse hoped that whoever his soulmate was, he had something really helpful, like a telephone number or a street address. Such things were rare, but they happened, and now that his soulmate was ready, he might finally- finally- be looking. 

But nobody came. Days ticked by, and nobody visited, or phoned, or looked at him at an odd angle in the street, like they’d just seen a miracle. They got called in to a body in a fire, and Morse met WPC Trewlove, who wore a tie, and he wondered, if, for a second, he’d gotten it wrong. He peeled off the patch that night, and found that his memory had tricked him. It was a man, clear as day. He stuck a new patch on, and counted the twenty-six he still had left in the box, and wondered how long he’d have to cover it to forget that it had ever resolved at all. 

“You coming down with something?” He asked Jakes, over a pint. “A new WPC and…” he waved his hands airily. Jakes hadn’t made a single remark about Trewlove’s appearance, or her suitability- ha- for the job.

Jakes flushed, and looked away. Thursday gave him a very odd look and said, “what’s gotten into you?”

The both stared at Jakes until he said, “I’ve decided I want to look for my soulmate.”

Morse schooled his face into neutrality. Thursday said, “what do you mean, you’ve decided?”

“I think my soulmate’s in America,” he told them. “I’m going to go looking.”

“It’s a pretty big country,” Thursday said, “you know where you’re going to start?”

Jakes nodded. There was an enthusiasm to him. A twinkle in his eye. Morse, surprising himself, thought, ‘I wish I could see him look like that more often.’

“D.C. and then Baltimore. I talked to a searcher, and she says that’s the explanation of my mark that makes the most sense.”

“Is it vague?” Morse found himself asking, and made a conscious effort not to glance towards his own mark. Thursday, whose mark was vague, reached unconsciously to touch it.

Laughing, Jakes said, “maybe too specific, if anything. It’s words.”

Technically, police weren’t supposed to show each other, but- 

Before Morse could say anything, Thursday said, “Morse is probably better value than any searcher, all that information banging around up there. What words are they?”

“Don’t answer if you don’t want to,” Morse cut in over him. It mattered. He knew what it was like to have people bother you about your mark. 

“What’ll he charge?” Jakes joked. 

“Free,” Thursday said, “if you buy a round next time.”

It wasn’t the worst thing Morse had ever done for a free drink. “And you can’t ask me about my mark ever again.”

Jakes looked at him critically. “Unresolved, isn’t it?”

Even now, Morse could feel the flush rising in his neck. “I’m not matched to a child, Jakes. I’ve had the mark since before I can remember. She just doesn’t want me, and her reasons are her own.”

That sobered everyone up considerably, and as soon as Morse had said it, he wished he could take it back. But if wishes were horses and all that. 

“‘What hath God wrought,’” Jakes interjected, suddenly, “printed letters, no punctuation.” They both stared at him. 

“Excuse me?” Thursday demanded, but Morse understood. 

It was Jakes’s mark, ‘What hath God wrought.’ Despite Thursday’s confidence, he needed the searcher’s information to remind him what the words were. Biblical, obviously, but more than that. Jakes could find a church in any town. D.C., Baltimore. That was what showed him what the searcher saw. 

“Your searcher thinks it’s D.C. or Baltimore because that’s what the first telegram said, and where it was sent to and from. In the exact buildings, maybe.” Morse could feel his mouth drying out, but he tried not to let it show. He knew something the searcher never could have anticipated. The first telegram, sent by Morse- the famous one. Jakes would have caught that Morse’s name was involved, but he had known- known- that Morse was unresolved, which made it impossible for it to be him. But Morse looked Jakes up and down, at his suit, and played over in his head, ‘I’ve decided I want to look for my soulmate.’

Decided. Now. Recently. A shattered young man who hadn’t wanted a soulmate until now. Peter Jakes.

“Will you be leaving soon to look for her?” Thursday asked, oblivious to Morse’s revelation. 

Jakes sighed. “I don’t know. I asked Bright for searcher’s leave, but he flat out told me no. Said I’d have to quit the force if I was determined my soulmate was in America.”

Thursday groaned, the universal noise of a man frustrated by his boss. “You’re entitled to searcher’s leave, whether your soulmate’s in London or Timbuktu, long as you can prove you’ve got reasonable odds of finding her.”

“Well that’s just it. I brought the report from my searcher and all, but Bright wasn’t convinced, said my words could just have easily indicated a religious type right here in Oxford.”

“Your searcher disagrees with the religious angle?” They were all detectives. It was in their nature, and Thursday seemed to have latched onto Bright’s strange refusal just as much as Morse had. Unlike Morse, he didn’t know why. 

Bright had seen Morse’s mark. He knew it had resolved, and he knew it was a man. His strange words suggested that he might have known it was Jakes even before Jakes’s searcher report. He had known, and had tried to protect them both. Morse felt a sudden swell of affection for the old man.

“She’s read studies saying the more specific one mark is, the more vague the other is. She thinks that mine is the specific one in my pairing, which means it must mean more than ‘is familiar with the old testament.’”

Morse had read those studies too. It fit well with the two of them. Jakes had information enough to get a name, but in a difficult way. Morse had enough to confirm, which, given it was only a surname, was certainly necessary. 

“Well it’s not up to Bright to decide that. He’s no searcher. I’ll talk to him, see if he’ll come ‘round. Now, Morse. Got any other insight for us? You ever study searching?”

It was a terrible question. “You have to be matched to study searching, sir.”

“I’m sorry,” Jakes said, “it must be hard.”

What was the world coming to? “I’m fine.”

Thursday moved the conversation along. “You been resolved for a long time, Jakes?”

He nodded, thoughtfully. “She was precocious, assuming we’re roughly the same age.”

And Morse would never admit it, but he had wanted a soulmate for so, so long. Not the greedy want of children, but something real. Something life altering. It had shattered him to know that his soulmate didn’t feel the same. 

“I have something I need to tell you,” Morse said, and the words cut his throat as he forced them out.

Their eyes dug into his flesh. “What is it?” Thursday asked, after a tense breath. 

“My mark resolved while I was in prison.”

“What is it?” Thursday asked, in nearly the same instant Jakes exhaled, 

“Oh.”

Morse focused on Jakes, and tried to will him to both understand and say nothing. “Pictoral, a bit vague. Beyond that… it’s been so long, I’d rather keep it to myself, if that’s alright.”

“You don’t have to tell us anything,” Jakes said, panic seeping into his voice.

“I know.”

Thursday stood, suddenly. “Need to use the gents.”

And then they were alone. Morse waited until Thursday was well out of sight before he started to strip, peeling off his jacket, unbuttoning his shirt, pulling the patch off. 

It was an exact match. Not just to Jakes’s suits, but to the suit he was wearing at that very instant. Jakes looked down at what he was wearing, and then up at Morse. Their time was limited until Thursday got back, and Morse wanted to stay there forever, nestled in that look of complete understanding. 

“I think Bright worked it out. I had to show him the mark, told him I thought it meant it was a woman who worked at a department store. But he kept trying to tell me something, and I-”

“It’s not that I didn’t want you,” Jakes interrupted, urgently, “I just- I couldn’t have anyone know, and then you found out anyways, and I realized I didn’t mind as much as I thought, and-”

“Did you think it might be me? Before you saw the searcher?” 

“I knew the name Morse was involved, and I knew you were scrambled. I thought- I thought it would be you, but then you came back, and you didn’t say you’d resolved, and I assumed I was wrong, because how could you be unresolved and mine if I was looking-”

“I didn’t say anything because I was trying to protect you. You, my soulmate, I mean, not you, Jakes,” Morse told him, the words rushing out, “when I saw it I knew it was a man, and people could, I don’t know, they could hurt you, or-”

“Cover it,” Jakes hissed, urgently. Morse did as asked, and had buttoned up his sleeve just as Thursday sat back down. 

“I should be heading out,” Jakes said, faux-casual. “I have some paperwork to do.”

They said their goodbyes, and Jakes left Thursday and Morse alone. They were quiet, and the silence ate at Morse. He wanted to say something. He wanted Thursday to say something, but neither of them did. 

Thursday was a good detective. There was no way he had missed the shift between them, their shared relief to know that they were found. But he didn’t say. Instead, he finished his drink, and left Morse there, alone. 

The case consumed them all, after that. There was a kidnapping, and Morse was sent to deliver the money, and got whacked over the head for his troubles. 

Jakes was concerned for him, he could tell, but there was no time to address it. Morse wanted to hold his hands, to say, ‘don’t worry, it’ll be alright’, but Thursday was there, and they were tracking the bag, until the trail went dead and they struck out alone. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Morse offered, after an uneasy pause, when they were out of earshot of the other search parties. 

“Thursday talked to Bright. He’s going to give me my searcher’s leave.” 

It took everything in Morse to not scream. “But you don’t need searcher’s leave.”

Jakes looked at him like he was an idiot. “I know that, Morse, but what was I supposed to say? ‘Thanks a lot, but fortunately, my soulmate is another male police officer.’ If I lied and said it was a woman, Thursday would want to meet her. This was the only option.”

“So what?” Morse could feel the anger rising in his chest. It wasn’t fair. All these years of waiting, and Jakes still didn’t want him. “You’ll just go to America and see if you can find someone better?”

“No, I-” Jakes cut himself off with a choked noise. “This is the only way for me to keep you safe, Morse.”

And there was so much in that. But it didn’t change the fact that Morse wasn’t going to be able to hold his soulmate at night, to touch him, to be held in turn. To trace his mark with hands and lips and tongue, and know that the words meant him. 

“Don’t you dare,” Morse began, and stopped as the landscape before him started to make sense. No matter how the hurt clawed at him, there was still work to be done.

They found the girl in the old tunnels, tied up and blindfolded, and they found the bomb beside her. The gate was between them, too solid and too much. They needed a tool to get through. 

“Go,” Jakes told him, and Morse, who had never much liked orders, refused outright. 

“Please, I can’t afford to lose you. You can go to D.C., find a real match-”

Jakes put a hand over his mouth. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m your senior officer, and this is an order. Go get it, I’ll stay here.”

Morse ran to get the lever, and ran back. His heart was pounding in his chest. There hadn’t been an obvious timer on the bomb, and it could have gone off at any second. That probably made running towards it irrational, but he needed to get to Jakes. That was the important thing. Jakes. 

When he got there, Jakes had made a hole between the bars and climbed through. He pushed the girl through, and told Morse to get her out. Morse wanted to argue, to make sure that Jakes was with him, but he knew that nobody else deserved to be hurt for them. 

They ran, and Morse waited, but he couldn’t hear Jakes’s footsteps behind him. Everything in his body screamed to turn around. He burst from the tunnel, and felt the explosion as it threw him to the ground. 

He was alive, but Jakes had been behind him. He looked up, prepared to run back inside, to look for Jakes- or, God forbid, for his body. His heart broke in his chest. They would have ended before even beginning, with a fight. No, no, no. Please. 

And then the smoke cleared, and he saw Peter, and everything made sense. 

Peter would go, and look for a soulmate who didn’t exist. It would be tragic when he didn’t find her, but when his leave was up, he could come back, and Thursday would say that it was a ‘right shame’, and they could fly perfectly under the radar. Unresolved Morse and Jakes, with the American match who he couldn’t find. Maybe she was even dead. Who would ever guess that they belonged to each other? Not a rejection, but a delay. 

Finding his voice, Morse said, “I’m an idiot, and I’m sorry.” 

Peter didn’t say anything, but he smiled, and Morse understood, and that was enough. 

They solved it, as always. A staged kidnapping, the bomb triggered from a safe distance. Morse fought away the cold anger that overtook him when he realized. He had never been in any real danger, but Peter had. He had been behind Morse when the bomb was triggered. Another second or two, and he would have been dead, and Morse would have been alone. 

They had a going away party for Jakes, soon after. He had three months of searcher’s leave, before he had to decide if he was staying or going. Morse went to the party with a heavy heart. He knew, logically, that Peter would come back. The match was perfect. But there was still a sting of jealousy in his heart that Morse found himself unable to quell. He left early, and didn’t say goodbye aloud. 

He did, however, leave a note in Jakes’s- Peter’s- luggage. _Dear Peter, safe travels. All my love, Morse._

It wasn’t goodbye. It couldn’t be. They would be together again, in time. As they got further and further away, they each touched their marks, and knew that they would meet again, soon.


	2. Morse II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Endeavour alone, more and less so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: Canonical childhood abuse mentioned, some discussion of self harm. 
> 
> That makes it sound dark but it’s not I just think if either of those things are likely to trigger you you should look after yourself first.

“It’s only for three months,” Thursday scolded Morse, with an undercurrent of disappointment running through his voice. “Let Strange find his footing in all this.”

Morse considered slugging his superior officer in the head. It had only been a week since Jakes had left; a week since Jakes had become his soulmate, and had been forced to go all the way to America because Thursday had a bee in his bonnet about searcher’s leave. 

They were in a pub, as was not unusual, but though Peter had not always been with them before, it felt empty without him, now. Morse missed being able to sit back and listen to he and Thursday speak while Morses’s own thoughts strived towards greater understanding. He missed Peter’s quiet silences, when their positions were reversed. 

“He wastes my time,” Morse snapped, instead. “He’s nowhere near half the man Jakes is.”

“Maybe you need some searcher’s leave. A soulmate would help calm you down.”

Yes, he would. Morse let out a bitter laugh. “And do what with it?” Spend it in America with Peter. “Check every department store one by one?” Go see the sights. “Walk the streets in hopes some girl will like my clothes?” Spend the time in bed, learning the touch and scent and taste of each other’s bodies. “I’ll take Strange over that any day of the week.”

Thursday blinked, genuinely baffled. “I thought you would be relieved, now that your mark has finally resolved itself. Clothing, you said?”

Morse gave his best casual shrug. “I’ll know her by her mark, when she comes to me.”

Thursday was watching him carefully, now. “You’re sure you haven’t already met her?”

Stay calm, Morse. Stay calm. “I think I would know if I met my soulmate. Sir.”

“I’m sure you would,” replied Thursday, so casually that Morse was absolutely certain he knew.

Now what to do about that? “I would tell you if I knew.”

“Would you?” 

Damn, damn, damn. “Yes.” Think, Morse, think. “Unless she asked me not to.”

Well now it seems like you’re blaming Jakes, or having an affair with his wife, or something, Morse. Nicely done. 

“I’m sure,” Thursday repeated, and left him. Morse indulged himself for a moment, and put his head in his hands. 

Their case picked up, resolving itself into the form of a secret tiger being lured to maul people for revenge. Morse stared down its maw, and waited to die. It seemed, in that instant, a sure thing, and he thought of Peter in D.C., sightseeing, and wondered, ‘will they interrupt his holiday to let him know a colleague has died, or will he find out when he gets back?’ For the smallest second, his eyes flicked shut, and he thought, ‘What hath God wrought?’ 

The gunshot tore him from the moment of meditation, and Morse watched the tiger slump to the ground. He couldn’t help it, the fear, and addrenline, and relief, and _Peter_. He threw up into the hedge. Behind him, Thursday and Bright were talking. Other people, too, but he found he couldn’t focus. Morse had almost been killed. He had almost widowed Peter. The thought was unbearable.   
_  
Dear Peter,_

_I have not been eaten by a tiger, but it was a near thing. It was the most terrifying experience of my life, I think. I am glad you were not there to see it. I thought, for a second, that I was going to leave my newly-resolved soulmate alone. I detested the thought._

_I hope your searching is going well. This letter should find you in D.C., and- all going according to plan- knowing who your soulmate is. I hope when you find her, you are happy. I hope you make each other happy. I hope love and desire drive you to joy. This is all I can wish for you. It is all I can wish for anyone._

_You’re better at all of this than Strange, and I hope you and your soulmate come back together, soon._

_Best wishes,_

_Morse.  
_  
The next day, he was called into Bright’s office.

“Sir,” he said reflexively, as Bright waved him into a seat. His usual manner seemed to mostly have returned after the odd darkness Morse had glimpses after they grappled with the tiger. He wondered if he should thank Bright again for saving his life, but decided against it. The memory might hurt more than the thanks would heal.

“How are you, Morse?” Bright’s hands were folded in front of him properly. 

Honestly? Exhausted, lonely, and terrified. “I’m fine, sir.” 

“That’s good. Good. Now, tell me about what’s going on between you and Thursday.” 

What had Thursday told him? “Nothing, sir.” 

Bright raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “So, if I were to ask him the same question, I would receive the same answer.”

“Yes, sir,” Morse answered, hoping it was true. Thursday might have suspected, but surely he wouldn’t reveal Morse and Peter. Morse didn’t think he had it in him.

Bright sighed, and looked at him like a don at a particularly stupid undergraduate. “Be truthful, Morse. Nobody else is listening.” 

After everything they’d seen, he couldn’t really believe that. “Sir.” 

“If that’s how you feel,” Bright told him, “you should know that Thursday is not a stupid man. Dismissed.” 

Morse knew what Bright was trying to suggest. It was obvious, but how could he? If Thursday found out, Jakes would be found out. He couldn’t allow that. He couldn’t allow harm to come to Peter just because he was an unsubtle fool. He changed nothing. It was better to lose the bond he’d shared with Thursday to silence than to risk Peter.   
_  
Dear Morse,_

_A tiger? How long until you have lions and bears too? Please don’t allow any large animals to eat you. It would be a real loss to the force, not to mention to whoever your soulmate is._

_You would hate America, but I like it. It’s exciting. I haven’t found my soulmate yet, but it’s only a matter of time. When I do, and we come back to Oxford, I have all sorts of plans. We’ll go to concerts and things. You like music, don’t you? You can help me decide what to do._

_I know that when I find her, it’ll take me time, to learn what to do with what I feel, how to treat her and hold her and make her feel loved. I hope she knows that I want to be there for her, and that I want to learn._

_Sincerely,_

_Peter.  
_  
The letter was innocuous enough to keep. Morse clutched it against his chest for a long time before stacking it at the top of a pile of assorted correspondence. Papers found tucked in nooks and crannies were far more likely to be found suspicious. Even if he died, he didn’t want Jakes to be caught in their relationship by whoever ended up saddled with investigating it. 

He sat down to write his response, and wondered if he could find some way to disguise a request for guidance on the situation with Bright and Thursday under layers of deceit. A loud knocking at the door settled the debate for him. 

It was Thursday, and he looked tired. “Show me your mark, Morse.”

Morse stepped inside defensively, and Thursday followed, letting the door swing shut behind him. 

“You can’t ask that of me.”

The exhaustion faded away, replaced by anger. “If you don’t have anything to hide, you’ll show me your mark, Morse.”

Morse held his arm close, and tried to work out a plan. There was no way he could get past Thursday to the door, and running further inside wouldn’t help him. Unless he could find some way to distort the mark so Thursday couldn’t see it. A knife? If only it wasn’t on his dominant arm. And Peter wouldn’t want that. Then what? 

“Show me.” 

Maybe he could convince Thursday it was something else, something worse. Absolve Peter, at the very least. His hand shook so hard that he couldn’t unbutton his sleeve. Eventually, Thursday grabbed his arm and did it for him. Morse pulled the patch off, and they both looked down at Peter’s suit.

Thursday pulled back looking… chagrined? That didn’t make sense. 

“My apologies,” he murmured, face going red. Morse stared at him. 

“What did you think you were going to find?” 

Thursday looked at the ground. Morse, trying to figure out if he should be relieved or not, worked his breathing and heart rate down to normal. It was better than after the tiger, better than almost losing Peter to the fake time bomb, but still close to the most terrified he’d ever felt. 

“Don’t tell anyone,” Morse implored him. 

Thursday gave him a look. “I don’t think I need to, do I?”

Morse wished he knew what that meant. “No, sir.” 

“It’s Jakes, is it?” 

“Yes, sir.” A lie would only make this worse. “But that isn’t his fault.”

Thursday raised an eyebrow. “Last I checked, soulmates weren’t anyone’s fault.” 

Morse breathed carefully, forcing the air to fill his chest. “He wouldn’t have chosen- to be like this. I can resign first thing tomorrow. Nobody needs to know.”

“I hope that isn’t true,” Thursday told him, resigned. “I wouldn’t want either of you to go unwanted.”

Thursday put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and Morse realized abruptly that he didn’t seem upset about this. Something was certainly bothering him, but it wasn’t Morse. Instead, when Morse shook his head to say, ‘no, neither of us are unwanted’, he smiled.

“Sir?” 

“I thought Jakes could use a soulmate. That’s why I pushed Bright so hard to let him leave. I wouldn’t have, if I’d realized he already had one right here. I’m glad for you, too.”

Morse thought that he meant it. It was almost funny. Bright, with his knowing looks and Thursday, blundering his way to understanding. And yet it said something about each of them that they had come to acceptance in their ways. There had always been a certain strangeness around Bright that made it unsurprising, in a way. Thursday, on the other hand, could be concerned about propriety at the strangest of times, and Morse had not expected the fatherly lilt in his voice when he added, 

“You look awful. Come, let’s have a seat.” 

He guided Morse back into his arm chair, and pulled a less comfortable chair closer for himself. Morse forced himself to breathe again, slowly and carefully. He repeated this action until his heart felt steadier. Then he turned to meet Thursday’s eyes again.

What had Thursday thought his mark would be? If not a man, if not Jakes, then who? The obvious answer, of course, was Joan, but Morse knew from personal experience that they couldn’t be matched. For one thing, she’d been looking for a soulmate long before Morse’s mark had resolved. For another, she’d told him when he’d taken her home from dancing with Peter that she was sure her soulmate wasn’t in the police. She’d said it with such confidence that he was inclined to believe her.

Thursday watched him closely. “How are you taking it, then?”

“I’m alright.” It was terrible to know that his soulmate had been through the things Peter had, but increasingly, he found that he felt a fierce protectiveness for Peter. Someone else might have judged or questioned him in ways Morse never intended to. It was better this way, surely. “In the end, I think people believing his soulmate is an American will serve us well.” 

Thursday nodded. “And what about you?”

“Does anyone other than the four of us ever need to know that I’ve resolved?”

Thursday looked chagrined. “I’ve already told Win.” 

Of course he had- they were soulmates. Morse would have told a secret he learned in kind to Peter. “Will she tell anyone?” 

“No.” Thursday paused on the edge of speech. “There’s something you need to know.” 

Had he told Joan too? Or would this reveal why Thursday was really here? 

“What?” 

“Win and I aren’t soulmates.” 

Morse felt his posture shift as he used techniques learned from work to hide his shock. Thursday, he suspected, could see right through them. “You thought that I…” 

Had Thursday believed they might be soulmates? No, it couldn’t be. There was no way that the flower in Thursday’s mark was Morse. That meant that it was Win Thursday who might have been his.

Thursday took it upon himself to explain. “My Mark is vague. You know that. When we first met, I was so totally sure that it was Win. Her soulmate is much younger, and she knew that it couldn’t be me, but she never wanted to be matched to someone who wouldn’t be ready for a relationship all her life. And there was a war on. We might all have died before her soulmate came of age. So she let me pursue her, and we fell in love. By the time she told me, I knew that no matter who my mark was supposed to mean, she was the one I wanted.”

He paused, and Morse took the time to mull it all over in his head. It didn’t seem possible that two people who loved each other so much might not be soulmates. And it certainly didn’t seem plausible that someone as kind and normal as Win Thursday might be matched to some her children’s age. And yet Thursday had been so desperate to see the mark, so angry. He didn’t have enough information yet. 

“Why me?” 

Thursday was still watching him, but Morse rather thought that if he hadn’t spent years facing off against all sorts of violent criminals, he might have stared at his feet. “Because her mark resolved the day we went to Blenheim Vale.”

That wasn’t possible. Or, if it was, it was sheer coincidence. “That should mean it was Peter, not me.”

“I wondered that, but ‘what hath God wrought’ doesn’t really seem like Win.”

“And it does seem like me?” Morse asked. 

Thursday gave him a sceptical look. “Of everyone I’ve ever met? Yes, it seems the most like you. But when he gets back, you should tell Jakes to buy some new ties. That way, even if someone sees your mark, it’ll be less obvious that he’s implicated.”

Morse wished he’d thought of that. “It’s not me because of the words. It’s me because of the telegram. Morse’s telegram.”

Thursday nodded thoughtfully. “That suits you, too. A bit of a puzzle to work out, requires some scholarship to understand.”

Thursday was right. It did suit him. Peter’s mark suited him, too. The outline, the appearance, couldn’t capture the whole. It would only have allowed someone who paid attention to the man he was now- like Bright, like Thursday- to know that it meant him. Even Morse, absorbed in his own fears, had been too blind to see it. Now, knowing the truth, Peter was all he could see. But, he supposed, that was how marks were supposed to work. They were to allow the people who bore them certainty. But, evidently, not for everyone. 

“Do you think Win’s soulmate is- was-”

“I think it was coincidence,” Thursday admitted, “people die every day. Come to terms with their soulmates every day. Even scouring the obituaries, we might never find a mark that matched hers. I just- the way you and Jakes whispered, your refusal to tell me properly what it was, everything was setting off alarm bells in my head.”

And quite rightly too, they had been hiding something. “I’m sorry.”

Thursday shook his head. “Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Morse wondered if he should ask Thursday if he was alright. Why hadn’t he talked this all through with Win? Why was he here? Was that any of Morse’s business?

“Are you-”

“I won’t tell a soul. I promise.” He stood. 

Morse bit down on the part of him that wanted to interrogate. “If- if Peter says it’s alright, I wouldn’t mind Win knowing. You shouldn’t have to keep this from her.”

Thursday nodded fromally. “If Win agrees, you shouldn’t have to keep this from Peter.”

He left Morse sitting there, alone with his letters. It took him some time to pick up his pen again, and begin.   
_  
Dear Peter,_

_Inspector Thursday appears to have been operating under several misconceptions regarding the nature of my mark. For indeterminable reasons, he seems to have thought that I might have been interested in some kind of pursuit of his soulmate, Win. I resolved the confusion, but it was stressful to say the least, and I had to show him my mark to prove it. I never, ever want to have something like that happen again._

_I never want my soulmate to be hurt because of me. There is danger to her in being matched to me. I could be killed, or, worse, someone I fail to stop, who gets out, who hates me, could kill her. The idea of her being hurt because of me makes me want to tear my mark off so no one will ever know. I just- I can’t bear it._

_Morse._

_Dear Morse,_

_Do not do anything to your mark. Your soulmate needs to see it as much as you do._

_Please keep the enclosed obituary clipping. I’ve been going through the archives, and I believe the woman in it seems to be my soulmate._

_I’m coming back to Oxford as soon as I can. Would you mind if I imposed on your hospitality until I figure out where I’ll be living?_

_Peter_

The obituary, from a paper dated a few months earlier, described a young woman who had been the driver killed in a car accident. She had no match, and her recently-resolved mark depicted what her friends had all remembered as a ‘british policeman’s badge’. It was essentially perfect. Morse felt an odd remorse for using the death of this girl. Presumably, she had a real soulmate out there somewhere. One who she would now never meet. But her obituary would keep Peter safe- more, would allow him to come home. And that was all Morse could ask for. 

The next few days were unbearable, as Morse waited, and waited. There were no interesting cases, so Strange had him doing paperwork. He thought about preparing to take his exams, but couldn’t get his head around the idea. If Thursday or Bright noticed that he was acting oddly, neither of them said anything. He hadn’t seen Dr. DeBryn in a few days, so his noticing was out of the question. Morse bit his tongue around the station, and tried to act normal. 

Then, one night, he came home and found, waiting on his doorstep, Peter Jakes, a very large trunk, and two orders of fish and chips. Peter held up the food as if it were a peace offering and said, 

“I thought we could stay in tonight.”

It took everything in Morse not to embrace him there and then. But he waited. The key was cold in his trembling fingers, and Peter took it from him, pressing newspaper and dinner into his hands instead. They didn’t speak, as Morse held the door open, and Peter, grunting, dragged his bag the last few feet. 

His hair was longer, and unkept from travel. He had that exhausted look of someone who’d spent hours travelling, but there was something else there too. A desperation, a little excitement. Morse hoped that Peter felt the overwhelming relief seeing him that he did seeing Peter. He imagined that soon, Peter would trim his hair back, shave the stubble that had made itself known across his jaw. Before then, Morse wanted to run his fingers through his hair, and feel that stubble on as many parts of his body as possible. No, Morse. Boundaries. 

“You look tired.”

Peter ran a hand through his hair distractedly. “I am, a bit. But I don’t think I look bad enough to pull off ‘just found out my soulmate died.’”

He smiled at Morse, who smiled back helplessly. “Not really.”

Morse made sure the door was locked behind them, and then, taking his dinner with him, went to put on a record. He did it almost automatically, barely paying attention to what the music actually was. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they’d be difficult to overhear, like this. The walls weren’t that thin, and he was fairly certain no one had heard his conversation with Thursday, but Morse didn’t like taking chances. 

They sat and ate together at Morse’s small table, knees periodically bumping together under it. It was comfortable, in ways Morse hadn’t expected. Partway through the meal, Peter seized Morse’s greasy left hand in his own, and they twined their fingers together. Peter’s fingers were rough, and Morse could feel his calluses. He was equally sure that Peter could feel his own, where years of note taking and report writing had worn a permanent mark into his hand. 

After a time, Peter set down his meal and said, “I don’t know what happened between you and Thursday, but please- don’t hurt yourself. I don’t want-”

Oh. “I won’t. I never really intended to. I was just scared, and I didn’t know what to do. I don’t want to get it removed either, even though I know that would be safer. I like knowing you’re mine.”

Peter was quiet for a long time, looking at where their fingers met. Morse held out his right arm, and jerked his head vaguely at it. Shaking fingers rolled up his sleeve, and gently, slowly, pulled the patch away. They both looked at the lines, stark and severe against Morse’s skin. Peter rested his fingers against it, and Morse could feel his pulse thumping hard against it. 

“When my mark first resolved, it was in a very bad time. I was afraid about it resolving while I was so young. People said- I thought about damaging it, cutting it off. Now I’m glad I didn’t, but don’t- I can’t ask you not to be afraid, but I can ask you not to ever hurt yourself because you think it might be good for me. Please, don’t.”

There was so much and so little to say to that. “I’m sorry.”

Peter sighed, and then, leaning down, he pressed rough lips against Morse’s mark. Morse’s breath hitched in his throat, and Peter stopped. 

“Is this alright?”

“Yes.” But it was too much, after so long alone. “I think- we need to talk about this first.”

Peter sat back, and they finished eating in silence. Morse switched the record over to the other side, and Peter cleared away the remnants of their dinner. He paused on the threshold of the living room, and watched Morse wearily, eyes like a lynx. 

Where to start? “I’ve never- with a man. I have with women, but not often. I flirt, but, with my mark-”

Peter nodded solemnly. “I have, but there are some things I’m not comfortable with. Or at least, not yet.”

Fair enough. And, truth be told, the idea of having sex with his soulmate was a little overwhelming. It felt incredibly high stakes. Morse thought that after so long, and the year he’d had, he might just cry. And that sounded terrible. 

“Do you want to stay fully clothed and neck on the couch?” He offered. 

Peter returned a small, but genuine smile. It lit up his eyes, and seemed to lift his very being. “Absolutely.”

And so they did. Peter mostly on top of him, and together, they were a tangle of long limbs. There were a few mishaps with elbows and knees, but eventually they got into an easy rhythm that went unbroken until Peter groaned, 

“Endeavour.”

Morse laughed so hard they had to stop. Peter, blushing furiously, gasped out, “it’s your name!”

“It’s possibly the least sexy thing anyone has ever said.”

Peter elbowed him gently, but his eyes laughed, and when he spoke, there was a lightness to his tone. “Well, what do you want me to call you then, when we’re not at work? I haven’t been able to come up with a good nickname. ‘Deavour? Endy? They’re terrible.”

Morse, aside from the obvious, only had the nickname Pagan. And the connotations with his mark made the idea of Peter calling him that truly vile. He knew what he wanted, but it was such a strange thing to ask. 

“Could you still call me Morse?” He tried to keep his voice casual. “I like it better, and it seems right. It’s in your mark, after all.”

That seemed to get to Peter. He wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, and fisted another in his shirt. “Morse,” he whispered, the word sweet on his breath, and got back to business.


	3. Lewis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young Robert Lewis, his terrifying boss, and his terrifying boss’s terrifying soulmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: I feel I’m really harping on this point, but there is canonical childhood sexual abuse and it exists in this world too.

Robert Lewis was a freak, and he knew it. He had two marks. Val’s, vague but fully formed upon his wrist, and the other mark, unresolved upon his chest. Val knew. But the secret was theirs to keep. The other mark belonged to a child, and would never, ever be acted upon. He didn’t need it. Val was more than enough soulmate for him. 

They assigned him to Morse because he was famously unresolved. Nobody talked about it publically, of course. There were rules against that sort of thing. That didn’t stop everyone from knowing, of course. Policemen were terrible gossips. It was only Val’s mark being so obvious that stopped people gossiping about Robbie. Nothing interesting to talk about for the PCs, even if the higher ups knew the truth. 

Morse found out, eventually. It was hard to keep something like a mark from someone who spent as much time with you as he did with Morse. A case had gone all wrong, and Lewis had been pushed into a river, and his shirt, soaking wet, had gone see-through.

When Morse saw it, his voice went deadly quiet. “Tattoo, Lewis?” 

He could have lied. It would have been easy to just say yes. Illegal, but fairly normal. But then, Morse might have thought that Val’s mark was the tattoo. After all, who would get an unresolved mark tattooed on them?

“No, sir.” 

“Neither of them?” 

Lewis shook his head aggressively. “No, sir!” 

Morse sighed deeply, and started unbuttoning his sleeve. Lewis stared at him as he rolled it up and peeled off an industrial mark cover, the kind that molded seamlessly with your skin, to show a man’s suit in stark black lines. Morse wasn’t unresolved. 

“I don’t-”

“This is your guarantee against me telling,” Morse told him, like he was talking to a child. “It may have escaped your notice, but the entire force thinks my mark is unresolved.” 

It was an incredible con. Police officers had to strip and record all their marks when they joined the force. Changes, matches, everything went on record. Why Morse had done it was fairly evident. His soulmate was a man. Even if it had been legal for years, Lewis didn’t know a single detective or uniformed officer who had a homosexual mark. Or, at least, he didn’t know any who were open about it. So, the real question wasn’t why. It was how. 

Morse, as if reading his mind, said, “my captain when the mark changed never put it on the record. Now, with the new regulations, they can’t ask me to display it again without reasonable suspicion. Since I know who it is, it isn’t a problem.”

“Are you…” Lewis waved his arms vaguely. What did he mean? Gay? Together? Cheating on your match every time I catch you flirting with some woman?

Morse gave him a calm stare. “I am never going to introduce you two.” 

He buttoned his sleeve up, and handed the patch to Lewis. “Go buy a bulk pack. If anyone asks, you’re covering a regrettable tattoo or a weird birthmark.” 

“Sir?” 

“People will always assume the worst of you. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Even knowing the truth, it was a shock to think that Morse, of all people, would protect his secret, and continue to trust him.

“Thank you.” 

Morse, damn him, grinned, and walked back to the car. 

Three months later, Morse got an improbable whack over the head while talking to a suspect a suspect. The man had picked up a glass vase- one of the cheap, thin ones, thankfully- swung it full force into the side of Morse’s head, and done a runner. It had shattered on impact, shards digging into Morse’s skull. Robbie had called an ambulance, and the man got away. There was a lot of blood. It scared the absolute hell out of Robbie. He was just getting used to having a boss who knew about his marks, and didn’t hate him. 

Morse was fine- not even concussed. Robbie still had to drive him home; Morse, who’d been given the good drugs, was completely out of it. Robbie helped carry him up the stairs, and went through the man’s pockets for his keys. He’d just retrieved them when the front door of the house- how the man afforded it on a DCI’s salary, the world would never know- swung open. 

Lewis stared at Detective Chief Superintendent Jakes. DCS Jakes stared back. Morse said, “thank you, Lewis.” And, stumbling inside, slammed the door in his face. 

Lewis stared at the white-painted door for a moment, in shock and disbelief, before it swung open again. 

“You’d better come in,” Jakes told him. It was an order. He turned behind him and called, “go to bed, Morse!” 

Morse’s… soulmate? Called him ‘Morse’? Very strange. 

Lewis, who spent an awkward couple seconds wiping his boots off on the welcome mat, heard Morse grumbling upstairs. 

“Not concussed?” Jakes enquired. 

Robbie shook his head. “No, sir. Just some blood loss. They spent ages digging bits of the vase out of his head. It’ll itch like hell when it heals, I shouldn’t wonder.” 

The Superintendent grimaced. He seemed pained by Morse’s pain. That settled it, really. Soulmates. No wonder Morse had been so adamant about keeping it out of the public eye for all those years. It wasn’t just his own career that was at stake. 

“Did Morse tell them not to call me?” 

Robbie tried to remember when that might have come up. “Are you his emergency contact? Sir.” 

“What do you think, Robert Lewis?” It was always terrifying to hear an authority figure say your full name.

“He told them not to call you, sir. Said he was fine.” 

Superintendent Jakes rolled his eyes in irritation. “Of course he did. Now, come. Do you want a drink? Between Morse and I, we probably have an acceptably wide selection of ale and things that are not ale. Stout?

“Stout’s good, sir?” Robbie felt the words coming out like a question. Morse had to be the most private man on the force- at least, about his home life- and now here he was, in his house, drinking with his soulmate. It was surreal. 

“Drop the sir, Lewis. My name is Peter.” 

“Robbie,” he corrected, and took the stout Jakes offered him. 

They went into the living room. It was old fashioned, and quiet. There was a small TV, but it didn’t look frequently used, and someone had piled a small stack of old magazines on top of it. One of them- Morse, presumably, was half way through the crossword. There were clearly two men’s record collections competing for space, and when Jakes pulled out something by Elvis and put it on, Robbie found himself unsurprised. He seemed like the normal one of the two. 

They sat on chairs across from one another, and, like the detectives they were, watched carefully. 

“You’re his soulmate,” Robbie said finally, finding his voice. 

Jakes leant back. “I am. He trusts you, or you wouldn’t be here.” 

If Robbie made the list of ‘people Morse trusted’, it must have been depressingly short. 

“My career in the police would be very short if Morse and I decided to reveal each other’s marks.” 

The Superintendent nodded. “Yes, it would.” Of course Morse would have told him. The lie was his as much as it was Morse’s. Perhaps more so. He didn’t think that Jakes was enough younger than Morse for Morse entering the force with an unresolved mark to add up. If he hadn’t wanted a soulmate for so long, people would probably think there was something wrong with him. Maybe there was, but Robbie didn’t think so. His instincts to him that Superintendent Jakes was- as much as any person who had Morse as a soulmate could be- normal.

“You call him Morse?” Robbie asked, in hopes of changing the topic to something a little less threatening. 

Jakes grinned. “He hates his Christian name.” 

“What is it?” 

“You’ll have to get that information from the man himself. I doubt you ever will, though. No offence, but if he hadn’t been younger and more awkward when I met him, I doubt I would know it either. Now, let’s talk about you.”

That was exactly what Robbie had been trying to avoid. “About me, sir?”

“Peter.”

“About me, Peter?”

Superintendent Jakes pulled himself up straight, and his face was all business. Robbie’d never had much to do with the man, but he was famously a terrorizer of anyone who got in the way of his detectives- usually Morse, come to that, who had a habit of rubbing people the wrong way. 

“Your mark is unresolved, like Morse’s, but it’s also relatively new. Your soulmate is younger than you. Significantly younger.”

“Yes, sir.” Robbie knew he’d been told to drop the ‘sir’, but at the moment, it seemed appropriate. 

Jakes’s eyes drilled a hole right through the heart of him. “What are you going to do about that?”

“Nothing, sir.” Of this, at least, Robbie was certain. “First off, whoever it is doesn’t want anything to do with me at the present. Plus, they’d still be a child. That doesn’t do it for me, sir. And I have my Val. If it resolved fifteen years from now, I’d still be with her, and it wouldn’t go anywhere. Sir.”

There was a long pause in conversation. The song changed to something slower, sadder. Jakes looked down at his hands. Robbie wondered if he’d given the right answer.

“You know it’s not criminal,” Jakes said, after some time, “if you have reasonable suspicion that a person who’s underage is your soulmate.”

“Maybe it should be, sir.” 

That seemed to be the right answer. Jakes nodded, and relaxed ever so slightly. “Very good, Robbie. Now, a wife- children?”

And so, Robbie talked about his family, and they both drank. Elvis crooned away in the background, and somewhere above them, Morse slept. Eventually, the conversation shifted back to Morse and Jakes. 

“So how long have you two known you were matched?” Robbie asked, when he was nearing the bottom of his beer. 

Jakes blinked slowly. “Twenty-two years, give or take. Give, now, I think, but I don’t really remember the anniversary, if we’re being honest. Morse would know.”

Many soulmate pairs were together longer, but Robbie didn’t think he knew many who were as easy in it as Morse and Jakes seemed to be. There was no jealousy or regret over lives not lived. There was no stress in the way Jakes spoke of Morse, and though Morse was obviously protective of his secrets, Robbie could hardly trick himself into believing he was ashamed. Cautious, certainly, afraid even, but not ashamed. 

“That’s good,” Robbie told him, honestly. “Does anyone else know?”

“Some. Max- Dr. DeBryn knows. As did a handful of people who were our superior officers or friends when we were your age. We debate the matter every few years, if we should try to tell more people, and always come to the conclusion that we like our lives the way they are. There’s no point in changing it.”

Robbie thought he understood that. He stood. “Thank you, Peter. For the stout, and for, well, everything, I reckon.”

Jakes looked plainly at him. “Thank Morse. He thought there would be good in you.”

“Have a good evening, sir,” Robbie told him, unable to fully process what Jakes was telling him, and showed himself out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions, comments, angry protests? I’ll only respond to two of those, but please, leave those two.


	4. Lewis II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years later, Lewis’s second mark finally resolves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW canon-typical grief/mourning.

Morse and Val both were long dead by the time Robbie’s mark finally- finally resolved itself. It was another vague, like Val’s on him had been, like Peter’s on Morse had been, only worse. It was tiny. An ornate cross right in the very centre of his chest, and not quite the size of his thumb.

Peter still lived in the house he’d shared with Morse for all those years. He was retired, and had spent his years after Morse serving as grandfather to Lewis’s children, agitating for soulmate’s benefits with the union, and, on Morse’s behalf, holding season’s tickets to the Opera. He had that look of a widowed soulmate about him, the same one Robbie knew weighed upon him like lead. Half of you was missing, and you had to carry on, despite it. 

The sound of knocking at the door drew Peter almost instantly. Robbie hadn’t called ahead; he’d just pulled his trousers on first thing, and come right over. By rights, Peter, who had no job to be at, shouldn’t even have been awake, but he was, and Robbie could hear the sounds of Wagner drifting through the damp, cloying, summer air. It felt like a thunderstorm was coming.

“Are you alright?” 

Robbie shook his head, and Peter, with surprising strength for a man his age, pulled him inside. He man handled Robbie into the living room, and into what he now knew was Morse’s chair. It was always strange to sit there, to know the man who’d brought them together was gone, and had been for years. It’s a good thing Morse gave them to each other, even if he’d sworn to never let them meet. Robbie didn’t know what he would have done, without Peter to pull him up by the scruff of his neck and make him keep going after Val died. And he didn’t like to think about what Peter would have done, losing Morse without someone there who understood what wonder there was under all the layers of insincerity. 

“Robert,” Peter said, and gave him a gentle shake. “Do I need to call a doctor?” 

Robbie managed to shake his head. “No. No, I’m alright. It’s just that my mark’s resolved, Peter.”

In genuine shock, Peter took a seat across from him. His eyes were wide with wonder. 

“Well then,” Peter managed, and subsided into silence. 

Compared to Robbie’s second soulmate, Peter had been an early bloomer. The age gap between them was around twenty years, but even so, Robbie’s second soulmate was well over thirty. He wondered what Morse would have made of it. Morse, who had been willing to wait until his soulmate was ready, however long it took. It was too late now, Robbie thought. Val wasn’t there to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Robbie couldn’t do it without her input. He just couldn’t.

“Breathe,” Peter ordered, in a remarkably clear recreation of Morse’s command voice. Maybe they’d learned it from the same person or something. Robbie did as he was told. “Robbie, keep breathing, alright? It’s going to be okay. We’ll call you in sick. I’m sure Jean can think of something to keep Hathaway busy for a couple of days.”

They sat there in silence, until Robbie’s breathing calmed, and he managed to fish his cellphone out of his pocket and call Innocent.

The days of mark disclosure among the police were long over. They still had to be covered at work, but the dedicated work of activists had secured police officers the right to be able to live without fear of superior officers discriminating against them based on the identity- or potential identity- of their soulmate. 

But Jean and Robbie both predated those changes, and so, when she answered the phone, Robbie said, “my second mark’s resolved, Jean.”

She said, “Take the day off,” and hung up. Robbie stared at his phone for a long second before setting it down on the table that had once reliably held a crossword and Morse’s drink of choice.

After a while, Peter said, “can I see it?”

Some people were awkward about showing their marks- including Peter himself, who’d never showed it off before Morse had died. With Val, Robbie’d never minded. It was the other mark that was private. Only now it wasn’t. Funny, how these things work out. Robbie unbuttoned his shirt, and showed Peter the tiny cross. It was almost gold in the light, faintly metallic in only the way a real mark could be. There would be no passing it off as a tattoo now. 

“Do you know who it is?”

It was a vague mark, why would he? But if Peter was asking then, “no, do you?”

“Some detective,” he muttered, and then, louder, he said, “isn’t that sergeant of yours a seminary dropout?”

Damn him. “Your mark has religious implications, and look at your soulmate.”

“If you don’t believe me, show it to Hathaway. See if he recognizes it.” 

“Hathaway’s not…” Robbie waved his hands around vaguely. 

“Gay? Religious? Looking for a soulmate? Your type?” 

In lieu of answering, Robbie just buried his head in his hands miserably. Peter clambered slowly to his feet and said, “I think this calls for a proper breakfast. How do you want your eggs?” 

They had breakfast, and let Wagner play quietly in the background. Then Peter conscripted Robbie to mow the lawn and cover the lawn furniture before the rain started. He himself stood in the doorway, and talked at Robbie. 

“Now that they want you- this potential second soulmate, what’s so wrong with having one?” Robbie didn’t dignify such a stupid question with an answer. “Soulmate relationships are more nuanced than anyone gives them credit for, and you know that. In our line of work, there’s few things under the sun that we don’t see. Val knew about the second mark, you never hid it from her. She only waited to make a decision to see the young woman- or man- who it belonged to. You can’t seriously think Val would disapprove of your Hathaway.”

It was too much to be borne, really. “She never got on with Morse.”

Peter laughed. “You know exactly what Morse was like. From what you’ve told me, Hathaway is far more able to be kind than Morse ever was. Not that he was unempathetic- not that I didn’t adore him- but he never had an easy time getting along with people. He just stood there being odd and smart and some people hated him and the rest fell head-over-heels in love.”

Peter’s view of his soulmate was certainly tinted with rose-coloured glasses, but there was no question that James was a social butterfly in ways Morse had never been. Although he did lack that ability to stand there and make people- mostly women, though not always, Peter in evidence- fall in love with him. James was certainly easier to work with, and not just because Robbie was the one in charge. 

Peter continued his monologue, oblivious to Robbie’s train of thought, “they don’t have to be all about sex either, or the only thing about sex. If you don’t want another romantic or sexual relationship- or romantic and sexual relationship- then you hardly owe it to anyone. But you shouldn’t hold yourself back just because it’s what people expect of you, either. At the very least, Hathaway deserves to know that there is someone in the universe who wants him in some way. I didn’t, and Morse never held it against me, but he felt unloved, unwanted, for so many years, and I wish that I’d been able to say then that, when I wasn’t ready for it to be sex, or love, I would have wanted a friend. I think he would have wanted that too.”

Robbie didn’t think he’d ever understand Morse and Peter’s weird, complicated, layered relationship. It was alien to him. But there was also a sincerity in it that told Robbie, had always told him, that none of their strangeness was wrong.

And it made him think. Could he want a soulmate, not, necessarily, for romance, or sex, but someone to be there for him, and he to be there for them? No, not just anyone, at least. But if it were James, then it was a rather different question. James was someone he already cared for, a person who he wanted to protect. The idea of James feeling unwanted by somebody, by anybody stuck a chord in him, and the sound was unharmonious. James deserved to feel wanted.

Furniture safe, they went inside, and put on a new record. To Peter’s taste this time, the Stones. Robbie fetched the newspaper from the front step, and stole the sports pages, but found he couldn’t read them. The words didn’t seem to mean anything after the revelations of that morning, and so he sat, and listened to the music, and watched the clock on the mantle tick away the time. Just as the first fat drops of water struck the window, Robbie’s cellphone began to ring. 

“Lewis.” 

Peter mouthed ‘who is it?’

“Sir?” 

Robbie blinked. “James? Didn’t Innocent tell you that I’m sick today?”

Peter mouthed, ‘James’ and gave Robbie a smug look. 

“She did. Said with you and Laura gone and no active cases, I might as well take the day. I thought I’d drop by. I need your advice.”

There was something unsettled in his voice. “I’m visiting an old friend. Look, I can drive back-”

“Invite him over,” said Peter, magnanimously. 

Robbie sighed, and gave the address. James took it down, and hung up on him. 

“What did you say that for?” Robbie asked Peter, once he was sure there was nothing on the other end of the line. 

Peter eyed him critically. “He’s got a sick day too. Clearly, neither of you are sick. Your mark was unresolved for a long time, yes, but you didn’t want a second soulmate any more than he wanted you. My guess: you’ve finally come to terms with it, and his mark just resolved today too. Now, that means one of two things: either, your mark is the vague one, or it’s the specific one. If it’s vague, then all he knows is that he’s suddenly got a soulmate, which is terrifying, and he needs your help. If it’s specific, then he might also know that all signs point to you, which is terrifying. He’s matched to some who, as far as he knows, has someone else for a soulmate.”

“None of this explains why you decided to invite him over.”

“Robbie,” Peter said, gently, “you can’t deal with this right now. You’re breathing like you’ve just run a marathon. I know what it’s like to be the partner who wasn’t ready for a soulmate. And the kind of things you’ve told me about James’s past over the years suggest to me that it may be more like my own than I would want for anyone. Let me help.”

He was right. “If you want to be the one who talks to Hathaway, what should I do?”

“Go upstairs and call Laura. She has the day off, if memory serves.”

Laura and Peter were in a support group together for people whose soulmates had died. Robbie had never gone, but it had led the two of them to be great friends independently of Robbie or of Morse. Laura was by far the most clear headed of their friend group. Her advice would be sound. The only trouble was, she didn’t know about Robbie’s second mark. 

Laura picked up on the third ring. “It’s my day off, Robbie.”

It took him a second to remember that caller-ID would have told her who it was. “I know. I just- there’s something I need to tell you.”

He could hear her go from distraction to focus as she realized that something was wrong. “Robbie? Are you alright?”

Here went nothing: “I have a second soulmate mark, and it just resolved.”

Nothing came from the other end of the line, but not the static nothing that meant the call had been cut off. It would be a lot to take in, Robbie knew. There was no such as a person with two soulmates. It didn’t happen. Ever. Not one case had been authenticated, though someone went to the tabloids with a story every few months or so. And now here was Robbie, calling her up and telling her the same nonsense story. 

“Where are you?” Asked Laura, finally. Robbie was starting to sense a theme. 

“I’m with Peter. He can tell you about the mark himself, if you don’t believe me.”

That seemed to calm her some. Her tone was more level as she wondered, “with Peter?” 

She might as well know all of it, now. “Him and Morse both knew. Morse saw it once while we were working on this case- I don’t even remember what it was- and you know he told Peter everything. It was- there’s no question either of them are tattoos. I remember both resolving, and a tattoo can’t resolve.”

“Alright,” Laura mused to herself, quietly. “Alright.”

“I’m sorry to tell you like this.”

“No, it’s okay. I can’t- I can’t imagine having to live with something like that, knowing nobody would believe you.”

It had been, but not for long. “Val did. Val always believed me.” And it had been lonely, the two of them, but, “Morse, too. He was hard to read, sometimes, but it didn’t change how he treated me.”

Pulling herself together, Laura asked, “is the second soulmate much younger, then?”

“Yeah.” And the hardest thing to say of all, “Laura, Peter and I think it might be James.”

“Hathaway?” There was a tone of desperation in her voice. “And it just resolved today?”

“While I was asleep, it must’ve.” She was quiet for so long that Robbie had to check that she hadn’t hung up on him. “Laura?”

It all came out of her in a rush. “Last night I was at a bar- this stupid- it was a date night thing- for people whose soulmates are dead, or who never knew them, or who just aren’t looking, and I saw Hathaway there, and he was with this man, and he looked so… happy.”

“Oh,” Robbie said, feeling the knife twist in his heart. “Do you think that he maybe wanted…”

Had Hathaway wanted someone else to be his soulmate? Was that why it had resolved? Suddenly, he thought he felt a pang of what had torn Morse apart so early in his life. To be unwanted by the person you wanted the most. 

“I don’t know, Robbie. I can’t begin to imagine what this would be like for him, if you’re right. What’s the mark?”

“A cross, tiny and ornate and gold. I’m not sure if it’s specific or vague, but he’s the right age, and it explains why it resolved so late.”

Laura let out a soft sigh. “It does. It makes sense. Just- if you have to let him down, do it kindly. He deserves that much from you.”

“He deserves more than that from me,” Robbie corrected.

“That, too.” She paused. “Do you think he has another soulmate, too?”

Given James’s life and luck, Robbie didn’t want to think about it. “Do you think we could talk about something else?”

Laura, who was a good friend, launched into a description of her evening. She hadn’t meant anyone romantically interesting, but a woman there, about their age, was a professor of zoology whose soulmate had drowned as a child. The description of their conversation lulled Robbie into a false sense of security. 

And then he heard Peter answer the door. Laura, as if sending his sudden rush of fear, stopped talking. 

“Hello James.” 

Whatever Hathaway said was lost.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too. Robbie has told me a lot about you.”

Robbie listened to the door close as James came inside. Laura breathed quietly in his ear for a moment, her exhalations a steady rhythm by which he measured the passage of time.

“Where’s Robbie?” James asked. 

Now that Robbie could hear him, he knew. The worry in his voice said it all. He needed Robbie. But if he feared a soulmate, nothing Robbie could say would help him. 

He stood, and closed the door, so he couldn’t hear what they said. For now, waiting and hoping was all that he could do. Peter was right; James needed to talk about this with someone who understood, and Robbie would always be too much himself for that. 

“Say something?” He asked Laura, keenly aware that the request was childish. 

Good friend that she was, Laura distracted him anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left! Hathaway!


	5. Hathaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fear slides away, a day, an hour, a minute at a time. Or: James Hathaway goes on a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW canon-typical mentions of past abuse. 
> 
> I’m not super happy with this chapter, but at least its over.

The relationships between soulmates and the church had always been complicated. In actual texts, both new and old testaments, the marks were a gift from God. In practice, marks could be a sign of temptation. Leading people away from marriages, from chastity, from their communities. Thus, even though it meant that God had not given him a true soulmate, James was grateful that he did not have to fear what it might drive him to do. It had made life easier, until it hadn’t, but even then, he had been grateful to be free of that fear.

There was the other fear. The deeper fear. The one he did not talk about. Who would it be? He did not allow himself to ask. That fear sustained him, as he turned fifteen and twenty and twenty-five and thirty with an unresolved mark. 

And then it stopped. There was no dramatic moment. There was not even a time when he went to bed and woke up unafraid. But measuring from one year to the next, the difference was startling. He became able to think of himself as a person with a mark, that might or might not resolve, to allow its existence to be part of him, and less than part of him. 

“Hi,” said a stranger. He was shorter than James, but most people were, with a shaved head and glasses. He wore a grey button down with thin, faint vertical stripes, and James would have guessed that he was about forty. He was black, and James would have judged by his accent that he was from London. Come to Oxford for school, maybe, stayed for some as yet unknown reason.

“Hello,” James replied, and extended his hand to shake. 

It was an excessively businesslike handshake, but then, a handshake had been a strange greeting at an event like this to begin with. Mentally, he scolded himself for making it awkward. 

“John.” Or Maybe Jon. He offered a winning smile and sat in the seat on his side of the table.

“James.” Hathaway tried to smile back winningly, but couldn’t quite get it right. 

“Nice to meet you James,” John said. It was a mark in his favour that he didn’t immediately go for Jim or Jimmy or some other, worse variant. 

James sat across from him. He talked to strangers for a living, but that wasn’t anything like this. A girl at the bar, no more than twenty, dropped her drink, and shrieked as the glass shattered. Everyone turned to look at her, and then went back to their conversations. The bartender got a cloth; the girl put her head in her hands in shame. 

“Is this your first time?” John asked, gently. 

James nodded, trying to hide his own embarrassment. “Is it yours?” He thought he already knew the answer. 

“No.” When James didn’t say anything, he added, “I haven’t been for a few months, but my girlfriend and I broke up.”

“Girlfriend?”

It was immediately defensive. “Will that be a problem?”

“No.” And then, because it was reflexive by now to follow up on every detail, asked, “do you mind if I ask what happened?” 

His face darkened. “She didn’t like the fact that my ‘soulmate’ is still alive.”

It wasn’t totally unheard of, for true matches to be destined for failure. Nicholas Sparks novels existed. But it was terribly hard on the people who it happened to. How could anyone ever trust a partner who had a soulmate out there waiting for them? But then again, James did, too, even if he didn’t know who. 

“I’m sorry.” 

John sighed. “Don’t be. I’ve had years to live with it. What about you? Widower?” 

If only it were that easy. “No.” He forced himself to meet John’s brown eyes. “Unresolved.”

The pity he had forced upon John was shoved back at him. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. Wherever he is, the same is almost certainly true for him.”

“So you never wanted…” John trailed off, waving his hand vaguely. They both stayed seated as some of the people behind them moved from table to table, up and down the bar. John craned his neck around to look at it, and then turned back to James. 

James shrugged. “It just… wasn’t, for me. Do you want to swap?”

He shook his head, and gave a small smile. “Not tonight. Can I get you another drink?”

“No, I’m working tomorrow,” James told him, with regret. 

John nodded with understanding, and didn’t get himself another drink either. “What do you do?”

“I’m a detective. What do you do?”

Laughing, John demanded, “what, like Poirot? Where’s your moustache?” 

“I left it in my car. And no, I’m a police detective.” 

He laughed again. “Well that’s a shame. I could have been the Watson to your Holmes.”

James found himself smiling. “You’re a journalist?” 

“I’m a surgeon.” 

It was a good date. John lived close, but he allowed James, who was well under the legal limit, to drive him home. They exchanged numbers, and made tentative plans to meet again. It was an oddly chaste affair. They did not so much as kiss, and yet James left feeling quite giddy. As he set his alarm and turned out the lights, he thought, what was I ever so afraid of? Can having a soulmate be any harder than that? 

He was halfway out the door the next morning when Innocent called to tell him there was no need to come in. It was unexpected, and she was probably going to take it out of him later, but it was nice in the moment. Since he was already awake, he decided to go for a run, and it was only later, as he got out of the shower after his run, that he noticed it.

Some people had subtle marks. Some people had artistic or emotionally significant marks. James Hathaway received the letters ‘RL’ stamped into his upper thigh. 

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he said to the mirror, because nobody else was there. 

Statistically, it could belong to any number of people. Practically, it certainly could not belong to Robert Lewis, who already had a soulmate. Emotionally, the opposite was true. People always said that your marks were to allow you certainty, not for anyone else, and James’s mark allowed him certainty. For better or worse, Lewis was his soulmate, and he was surprisingly okay with that fact.

‘Two soulmate marks resolved’ James typed into Google, pulling his jeans back on over the letters. 

This search sent him spiraling down a rabbit hole of tabloids, conspiracy theories, bad romance novels, and weird history (‘did you know that Henry VIII was alleged by Thomas Cromwell to have both “Catherine” and “Anne” as soulmate marks?’). None of it gave him any answers. Eventually, he bit the bullet, and called Lewis.

For some obscure reason, Lewis invited him over to a friend’s house. If he was visiting a friend, that clearly meant he’d lied about being sick, which only muddied things further. Did he know? Was he avoiding James? How could the mark have resolved if he was? Thoughts swirled through his mind, colliding and obliterating each other. He could not think. He could barely breathe. The uncertainty, the nerves, were terrible. 

Lewis’s friend’s home was in a nice area, and although the rain that spattered the windshield of his car did not allow for the best showing, it was clear that it had been tended with love. The bushes were trimmed, the fence could have done with a new coat of paint, but based on the condition of the rest of the house, it was likely to get one. He walked up to the front step, climbing the short stairs like they were an executioner’s block, and knocked at the door. 

It clicked open to reveal an old man, and James was surprised to discover that it was a face he knew. The marks rights activist, former chief super, and general agitator, Peter Jakes. The soulmate of Lewis’s old boss. 

“Sir,” James greeted, although he did not have to. It was a mark of respect for a man who had, at the cost of his reputation and privacy, made life better for widows and widowers in the force all over the country. 

“Call me Peter,” he greeted kindly, and motioned James inside. “You must be Hathaway. Robert told me you were coming, and I thought we should talk, before you speak to him.”

Peter lead James into his living room, and sat him down gently. He was the sort of old man who clearly had not lost an ounce of his wit, even as his body failed him. As his eyes watched James, it was clear that they missed nothing. 

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” James told him plainly. 

Leaning back in his chair, Peter said, “I know. Let an old detective work the puzzle over in his mind, would you? Your mark resolved this morning, didn’t it?”

What the fuck? “Yes.”

He nodded seriously, looking all too much like an old wizard ready to assign a quest for James’s liking. “I thought so. I could see Robert accepting it. Once he realized it might be you, there was really no question. It was similar with my own mark. Once I had Morse, the idea of it being anybody at all was far less terrifying.”

He spoke as though Lewis didn’t already have a soulmate. As though he had not married and buried his soulmate. “What?”

“Morse only resolved after we met.” James knew that part of the story. It was how they’d gotten away with being gay at a time when it was so unacceptable. “I was afraid of what my soulmate would think of me. I feared telling him of the abuses I had suffered as a child, of where my scars and nightmares came from.” He folded his hands carefully in his lap. “I told Robert I wanted to talk to you before he did. He can never understand what it is to fear your soulmate. Even with your mark- he feared having a second soulmate in the abstract, but having the mark resolve made him think of it belonging to a person. And Robert could never not love a person who loved him. It isn’t in his nature.” 

It was true, James knew. And it explained a great deal, though still not everything. “What did you hope to accomplish by speaking to me first, then?”

Peter averted his eyes. “I intend to tell you what Robert can’t. You owe him nothing because he is your soulmate. Not just a relationship or not a relationship, but within a relationship. You do not owe him anything you would not freely give, and anything you give ought to be something you want, not something that is expected of you. But the same goes for him, too. Just because he bears your mark does not mean he is required to have sex with you, or to do anything else. What is done should be done from love, not obligation.”

He said it so plainly that James had no response for him. Of course being a soulmate did not make someone indebted to them. He had seen enough of that in his line of work. Although he could not imagine himself expecting anything of Lewis, he could imagine Lewis- Robert? Robbie?- expecting something of himself. If they were soulmates, there was something powerful between them, and Lewis was not the sort of person who would allow himself to take without giving in return. 

“Whatever you decide,” Peter told him softly, “do it with the knowledge that whatever you choose is for and because of the both of you.” He leaned forward, and patted James on the knee. “He’s upstairs, when you’re ready.”

James wanted to be ready, but he wasn’t, yet. “Two soulmates.” 

“It’s true,” Peter assured him. “I wasn’t sure, at first, but Morse saw the mark unresolved, and I’ve seen it resolved.” 

“How is that possible? Having two?”

Peter shrugged. “How is any soulmate possible? Why are humans the only species to have them?” 

The bible had its explanation, but it was rather unsatisfying in this circumstance. James knew what he felt, and knew what he wanted. Or at least, he knew what he thought he wanted. “Where’s Lewis? Robert. Robbie.” 

“Upstairs.” 

James stood, and, at some vague hand waving direction from Peter, made his way up the stairs. There was only one closed door on the second floor, and James knocked. 

Robbie answered, and his eyes were sad. “I’m sorry, lad.” 

“Don’t be sorry.” Seeing him now, it became so clear that they were matched. “I’m willing to try this if you are, and see what it becomes.” 

“That sounds good to me.” 

The hug Robbie pulled him into was awkward, and sincere. James tucked Robbie’s head into his chest, and breathed in. When he exhaled, he breathed the last of his fear out with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter: Stay safe kids
> 
> Morse, from beyond the grave: when did you turn into such a dad???
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read and commented on this weird journey! Love you!

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure why this fandom has eaten my soul in the year of our lord 2019, but here we are.


End file.
